


The Tale of Cenblith

by Water_Slime (Fire_Slime)



Category: The Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO READ THIS FIC, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with no happy ending, Apocalypse, Dark fic, End of the World, F/M, Gen, No One Lives/Everyone Dies, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, Reincarnation Romance, Tragedy, Warning: Suicide, come watch the world burn with me, eternal recurrence, history of a world, implied rape, lost final appeal: life without parole, rocks fall; everyone dies, warning: depressing, warning: mind control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28024362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Slime/pseuds/Water_Slime
Summary: OR The Making of the Rivers.AfterThe Crown of Dalemark, Maewen has to wait four years before she can see Mitt again.  The problem is, in those four years, everything falls apart.COMPLETE. Should update weekly. Just... not always on the same day.
Relationships: minor Alhammitt/Libby Beer, minor Cenblith/The One, minor Mitt/Maewen, minor Tanamil/Robin





	1. Maewen

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps, someday, I shall return to this fic, and fix all its inconsistencies with canon. In the meantime, it is finished.
> 
> Once upon a time, I had a whole sheaf of notes on my theories, evidence for and against my case. It's a fact, however, that whenever there's any evidence of it, I seem to try to interpret the media I consume thus. It's a habit. It rarely happens—there's rarely enough evidence to justify it. But, it doesn't take much evidence for me to create infinite time loops.
> 
> I lost that sheaf of notes between the time when I wrote the first few sentences of this fic, over a decade ago, and this year, when I finished it. In the time between, I had an "original fiction" that also used the idea of time loops. I abandoned this fic, lest I repeat myself and use the same ideas in both. Then, Disney released a movie that sounded eerily similar to that original work, and I abandoned it. And a few years later thought: "Well, I might as well pick this fic back up, then". Now, it is written, and it can finally shut up and stop bothering me.
> 
> This is not a happy fic. At all. The first chapter is doubtless the most cheerful. It's all downhill from there. ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO READ THIS FIC.

Out of habit, Mayelbridwen Singer awoke early. Today was the day. Today, she would, somehow, make her way to Cennoreth's house at Dropthwaite. She felt slightly guilty—there was a reason that Mitt had told her to wait for two years—but she was resolute. She could make this work. And, she would. She knew The Weaver's melody to access Cennoreth's house, the hidden house by the lake. And she had enough money, she thought, to buy a train ticket that would take her far enough north….

From that train station, she knew that it would take several hours for her to hike to Cennoreth's house. But, she knew, too, that she had to go on foot (or horseback). Modern transport would never be able to access Cennoreth's hidden house. Perhaps, even, Mitt had subtly guided the course of the train tracks to avoid Cennoreth's house. Perhaps, whoever else was in charge of such decisions (should she ask Dad? Nah, she'd bothered him enough as it was) had found himself unknowingly guiding the path the tracks would take away from Cennoreth's house, or the track-layers themselves had, although—

Cennoreth did not dwell on the Green Roads, and the tracks covered over those. They buried them, smothered them, until none today believed in their existence, save for those who had lived in a time when they were still _there_ , uncovered. You could go along at a good pace even on foot by the Green Roads, for Wend watched over them, and now he had gone—she might never see him again, which did not bother her overmuch, and Maewen was free to seek for his sister, which raised the question: suppose she should encounter him during her visit to Cennoreth?

But, she could cross that bridge when she came to it. There was no need to worry about it just yet.

She left a note to her dad, to the effect that she fancied exploring Kernsburg by herself for the day, did he mind? She rather thought he might need a period of adjustment, now Wend had gone, and he needed a new flurry of assistants and attendants to do the impossible number of tasks Wend had taken upon himself, in his boredom.

Her note did not outline all of this.

She didn't want her dad to worry about her, although this departure was planned, unlike her trip to the past, and she fully expected to return, again unlike that trip. She made her way to the station, and spent her train ride glancing over her shoulder, with those quick, furtive peeks, the glimpses she'd started taking of a situation, snapshots, sometime during that journey. Was it during the battle that had erupted suddenly in the Kernsburg Ruins? Or earlier, when Wend had first left, and then _Luthan_ had shown up, and then Alk..?

Perhaps, it was earlier than that, when Hestefan had tried to murder her, back in Gardale. The point was, she was jittery and all nerves, and it had nothing to do with crushes, did it? This was wariness, the memory of the Kankredin fragment that Wend had sent away, but not destroyed. And then, it must have made its way to Amil the Great's tomb, and….

Oh. The horse. There'd been no one attending it when the battle had begun, and she'd been whisked back to the future. That must be how—the others would scarcely have known. Or, perhaps, it had come across Wend, wandering dejected over the Green Roads, and begun to whisper to him as it had his daughter Noreth, with him none the wiser….

She did not like Wend, but she wasn't afraid of him, anymore. Mitt had forgiven him, and she thought that she could forgive him, too. But, she might never _like_ him. He was a confusing tangled mess for her, whom she didn't rightly know what to make of.

She left the train hours later scarcely more prepared than she had been. She didn't know how to play music, but anyone could sing. Even her inability to carry a tune was irrelevant. As she stepped off the station, she began to hum, fixing the notes of the lullaby in her mind, checking to ensure they were all there. Then, she went over the words. She fell silent when she ran out of them, and set off the beaten path, out of the town of Dropwater and into the wilderness. She half-expected someone to stop her, but no one did.

She wandered through an area of trees and berry shrubs in fruit and growing grass, listening for water, and hearing none. She walked for quite some time. She'd brought a bit of a snack from the station, but she wished that she had her old bag (Noreth's bag) and better provisions. Once the city lights and bustle of cars had faded, Maewen almost felt that she _had_ stepped back in time. But, it wasn't enough to feel it. She had to make it so.

She thought of Cennoreth, with her old-young look, and began to sing, quite out-of-tune, the familiar lyrics that Moril had carried much better, in his clearer, smoother voice. She wandered through the forest with a destination in mind, thinking that she might be walking aimlessly, and wishing that she'd put more thought into this, and when she drew to the end of the song, she begged Cennoreth, and then The One, to guide her to the house.

She started up again, heartened a bit by the feeling that someone might have heard her prayers, she set into it again, wandering the trees with a sense of purpose she'd lacked before, and with the memory that Moril had gone the song several times before they'd reached their destination, and he'd had a cwidder to fill in the silences!

And then, around a twist in something that was not really a _path_ , but more the _sense_ of one, like invisible ribbons joining the trees, brought her into a clearing that she knew, with its pond full of quacking ducks, and its trough, and the cow, and the _house_. This was not a ruins; this was _real_. And, she knew that it was not properly of her time; she'd gone neither forwards nor backwards in time, but perhaps _sideways_.

Presently, as if summoned by her thoughts, a woman appeared in the doorway of the house (Maewen, looking at the door all the while, did not see it open), and beckoned for her. She did not look at all as if she could be Wend's old mother. She looked young, only slightly older than Wend himself, perhaps two or three years. She looked as if not even the span of a decade separated her and Maewen. That must just be how the Undying _were_.

No, it couldn't be. It was just how this _one_ was.

Maewen followed her inside.

* * *

The main part of the house was unchanged, with its pots and its pans kept high up, and a real fireplace, for heat and for cooking, and the table. Manaliabrid's work of knots'n'crosses had been taken down. Maewen doubted that Manaliabrid had come by to see this; she might still think her sword hung up there, but that too was doubtful. What had become of Manaliabrid?

"I've been expecting you," Cennoreth said, sitting down at the table facing Maewen, slightly older than she had been before. She might be Maewen's mother's age, and her hair was less yellow, whiter, than it had been when she'd opened the door. That _was_ it about the Undying. You had to keep an eye on them, or you'd think your eyes were just playing tricks on you when they pulled some such thing. Wend drawing the spirit of the cwidder out of the case, or infusing a piece of seaweed with its form? When she thought back on the event, it made less sense than it had at the time.

Maewen frowned down at the table, trying not to wring her hands or act nervous. "You—you have?"

Had Wend been by to see Cennoreth yet? Maewen doubted it. He'd had less than a day to get here. Although…she knew that he could take the train, too.

Cennoreth nodded. "I found the red snarl of your yarn suddenly gone in my weaving, and waited for it to return. And, here it was! I wasn't sure that it was the right one until it disappeared. When you left for the past, it was high-grade fibre woven—the sort mass-produced in a factory. But, when you went back to the past, it became rough-woven. Homespun. And, it stayed that way when you came back. A weaver notices these things."

Maewen tried not to be self-conscious, thinking of the scene she'd caused the last time she stood in this house. Who knew how long ago that seemed for Cennoreth?

"You remember me?" she asked, feeling that she could die from shame.

Cennoreth gave her a wry smile, but it was not unkind. "You were very memorable. And, that Mitt—the future king, good for him! Duck can't always have everything he wants. I'm sure he's forgiven you by now. He's just a bit…."

She trailed off, and then wandered off to a cabinet set into the wall, pulling out two mugs, and filling them from a hidden milk pail.

"Milk is good for you. I never liked any of that modern processed stuff. Drink up. It'll give you courage. I have a lot to speak with you about."

Cennoreth was the sort of woman who demanded to be obeyed. Maewen found herself lifting the cup to her lips without noticing anything about it. She had only her first observations that it looked brown and wooden to go on.

Cennoreth took a moment to carefully ensure that her number of combs keeping her hair passably neat had not come loose. She looked deep in thought.

"The One told me in my weaving what happened in Kernsburg. I read it, and…well, I don't ordinarily read such private weavings, but Duck was so distraught, you must remember—"

Yes. Maewen remembered Wend storming out of the house in great long strides, and how much dingier and more dangerous the trek had seemed after he'd gone. He had never seen the arrest, must have missed the news, too overwrought to consider the whys and hows of what had happened, but then he'd turned it over for the past two centuries, and he was _cunning_. He'd seemed so meek and polite back when they'd been traveling together, and then grown into a raging storm as he left. Who knew what Kankredin had done to him, after?

But, she did not say this aloud. Cennoreth's words gave her greater hope that Wend would not show his face anytime soon. He was the sort who stewed and sulked. He would not want to admit that he was in the wrong, or to apologise. It had never occurred to her before, but the loss of the cwidder had diminished Wend in a literal sense. He was less than half of himself without it. Perhaps, he'd drawn some of that power back into himself, since they'd parted ways, since yesterday when he'd retrieved it, but it wasn't merely a matter of power. She remembered how differently he'd stood, in those few hours when he'd had the cwidder back in his hands, on the way to Gardale. _That_ was the real Wend. And, it occurred to her that none of the nasty stuff he'd done had been done with the cwidder in his possession.

On the one hand, this was a relief: imagine a Wend at full power, at the beck and call of Kankredin! But, then again….

_The cwidder's power is based in the truth_ , Moril had explained. Perhaps, without it, Wend had falsely believed that he could still see through Kankredin's lies. And, perhaps, he _couldn't_.

He was a great one of the Undying, powerful and wise, with the cwidder. Perhaps, without it, he was less than a mortal man. She lifted her gaze to Cennoreth, and somehow did not quite dare to ask.

Then, she remembered what she'd asked The One, and felt her cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Cennoreth said, those sharp eyes fixed on Maewen. "But, I don't think any of you realised the danger you were in. You were speaking to The One by proxy."

"I—I know!" Maewen shouted, and looked down, wishing she could just curl in on herself. "But, we didn't know that at the time. We thought we were only talking to Hern…that was hard enough."

Hern was Cennoreth's brother. Maewen realised this fact quite suddenly. Wend had told her that King Hern was his brother quite casually before he'd cheerfully tricked her into going back in time, but it was hard to connect the two in her mind, and harder to connect The Weaver Cennoreth by association.

She took another sip of milk, and Cennoreth's scrutiny softened.

"Do you not understand, Maewen?" Cennoreth asked, kindly. "You asked to stay in Mitt's time—"

"And The One said too many unknowns lay in-between," Maewen said, with a grimace. The milk was quite good, warm and fresh, and soothing. She had never had milk like this back at Aunt Liss's, or Mum's….

"Ah, but Maewen, Mitt is _Undying_. He will live until someone finds an exploitable weakness of his, and _kills_ him. He has survived to your time, and thus, The One will keep his promise to you."

There was a portent in those words, and a chill crept up Maewen's spine. What—?

"He is Undying, Maewen," Cennoreth attempted to explain again. " _All time_ from his birth to his death is _his_ time. As _my_ time has been from the last four centuries, into an unknowable long future."

Maewen remembered Wend's bitter smile, the heaviness in his voice when he'd admitted he'd taken the job at Tannoreth Palace for something to do. _It just goes on and on. The time_.

She remembered a journey in her dreams across the Green Roads, how people forgot the Undying were making history, how time stretched tendrils out, and the Green Roads withdrew and flourished and spread and faded and rose again….

All time.

All time.

She set her mug down abruptly. "You can't mean—!" she protested, her voice suddenly raised in a shout. "Flaming Ammet! Look at me! Do I look Undying to you?"

Cennoreth stared her down levelly. "Undying isn't a look, Maewen. People don't realise that those named after The Undying tend to be drawn into the paths of the Undying, their roles. My daughter married a man named for The One, and she was Undying. Perhaps, The Adon also was."

_There are ways to kill us, though we don't die easy._

Maewen found that she was shaking, and angry, and that she did not quite know what to do with herself. She was named for Manaliabrid. Mitt had taken the name of a form of The One—Amil. Amil, a form of Adon, and Maewen, a form of Manaliabrid. Star-crossed lovers reunited when Osfameron (who was _Wend_ ) beseeched his sister, Cennoreth—

"But—my father!" she protested. "I can't—and Mum, she isn't—"

She stared down at the table through eyes suddenly blurred by tears.

_It is never easy to admit you are anything but mortal_.

Damn, she hated Wend now.

_Unpick, Tanaqui, unpick!_

_But Duck, you wouldn't want me to unpick a living person—_

She swallowed, and took a deeper swig of milk.

"He told me to 'make it four years, not two, to allow for inflation'," she said, after the prolonged period of silence Cennoreth had given her. "I suppose he _knew_."

Cennoreth folded her arms, and raised an eyebrow. "I can't claim to know what he knows. I don't keep track of everyone's knowledge, just their stories."

"So, I'll lose everyone—my friends, my family, all my acquaintances, and be left just with Mitt, is that what you mean? I mean, I love him—"

In other circumstances, she would be mortified at this admission, but it now seemed insignificant next to the load Cennoreth had just placed on her shoulders.

"Not quite," Cennoreth said, finally taking her own sip, and looking out at the place where Manaliabrid's sword had hung. "You were not alone when you went to face The One's judgement."

She sighed, and Maewen noted a faraway look to her gaze, as if she were deep in thought, or reminiscing. "We never quite figured out how it worked, did Duck and I: who was Undying, and who wasn't. It isn't quite as simple as genetics. There are two kinds of Undying. We gathered that much. There's the kind _born_ Undying, and the kind _made_ so. You have to have the blood of The Undying in your lineage regardless. The purer it is, the likelier you are to be born Undying. My mother was Undying. But, only three out of five of _us_ were. Hern and Gull were both mortal. Robin was Undying from birth. I think Duck was, too. But, I—"

She paused, looking back over her shoulder at the room Maewen knew held her loom and yarn. "I think I _became_ Undying. My fate was in-between. Mother wouldn't answer when I asked—"

Maewen tried to imagine a younger Cennoreth, tried to picture her mother, tried to think of Cennoreth as anything but the strong-willed woman who had guided them on Noreth's quest. She couldn't do it.

"But, I passed through death, followed the River of Souls to its source, in the falls above Dalemark, and met with The One…. And, when it came to an end, and I'd freed him from the constraints imposed on him by Cenblith, long ago, he asked me to go on weaving. I think I'd realised then that I'd be weaving for a very long time. But, whether I was Undying already then, I can only guess. Gull was in the River of Souls for a long time, and he never became Undying. But Mitt, and that boy Moril, were dragged there by the currents of time. The River has a role in all of this. And, Moril swore to help Mitt put an end to Kankredin, and talk sense to you. Yes."

Maewen's mouth went dry, thinking of that scene. She knew it. It was why Wend had ended up with Moril's cwidder ( _Wend's_ cwidder) to begin with. Mitt and Moril'd been too far away to hear, in the middle of a rushing river, and not in their proper time.

"I think that might be it—or part of it. I wish Duck were here. He's better at figuring things out, and he was the first of us to realise that Mother was Undying, that she was The Lady figurine we used to guard—"

Cennoreth made the mistake of shaking her head, and was distracted for several minutes by jamming her combs back into place with much violence, as Maewen processed this news.

"But," she couldn't help cutting in, as Cennoreth was occupied and had momentarily abandoned her explanation, "yesterday, when I told Wend to take his cwidder before he left Tannoreth Palace, just before he did, he glanced over at that portrait of Moril, and asked for his forgiveness—just as if Moril were really _there_ —"

Cennoreth nodded vigorously, and more combs came loose, but she seemed not to mind as much. She'd yet to finish replacing them as it was, and they were spread across the table, and on her chair, and her dress—Maewen' thought one had landed on the floor over there—

"Yes. He has a sense for it. For the Undying, and who _are_ Undying. That fool boy. If I'd suspected, I'd have told him to never let an effigy be made of himself."

There were photos of Maewen everywhere, but she somehow didn't think they counted.

"He can hear me, then? He can see me? That portrait—"

"He must have thought it worth it. I suppose Mitt asked him to, and sometimes Mitt reminds me of—"

Cennoreth cut herself off. "The point is, you're not alone here. Wait four years. I won't open Dropthwaite to you on a lark. Go back home, enjoy your time with your father. Don't let life be bittersweet for you. You should have a full life ahead of you. Look forward to the adventure…."

Maewen bowed her head. "I want to stay here—"

"Until he shows up four years from now? What will your father think? Do you want to waste what time the two of you have left together? I think you forget you'll have to leave sooner than you might wish, to hide that you don't age."

There was a sad smile on her face, and Maewen wondered what had become of Cennoreth's father, who had never been mentioned by any of the three siblings Maewen had met.

"And, don't forget: Kankredin still holds a grudge against you, who restored a king to the throne of Dalemark, and broke his hold over it. Let Mitt and Moril do their work, and me do mine. You have forever ahead of you. Be patient," Cennoreth suggested. "And, drink your milk."


	2. Moril

He'd learnt enough, somehow, in the interim, to know precisely where to wait for Mitt, and Mitt had definitely learnt enough to know where to find him. It was a long-standing arrangement of theirs, by now, familiar even though Mitt had spent the last three decades only occasionally checking in. He must have found something else to do. He had a wide skillset, as Moril never would, and did not particularly care to.

Moril had promised to help Mitt with defeating Kankredin, in the River, on the way to Gardale. Then, there was what each of them had said to The One in Kernsburg. Cennoreth seemed to think that it had bound Moril into immortality. He had not minded at first, as it put him in mind of the tales he had grown up hearing and telling (performing) at every town on the way north. He'd wished, as a child, to be part of those tales, the old ones with The Adon and Manaliabrid, not thinking to himself that The Adon was a title instead of a name, nor that his own sister was named Manaliabrid.

His own sister was also named Cennoreth, and their ancestor's name had been both Osfameron and Tanamoril, and he had been Cennoreth's brother—her younger brother, and the youngest of their family. Moril had always noticed patterns, but it had taken this one quite some time to begin to trouble him.

It had been easy enough when all it was was that Brid had fallen in love with Kialan, the Adon of Hannart. Once he'd straightened out in his head that Kialan was a decent person, and made his peace with the matter, it had fit nicely with his romantic notions of the old stories. Osfameron or Tanamoril was the younger brother of Cennoreth. Osfameron was the uncle of Manaliabrid. And he was the friend of the Adon. Moril could only be two of those things, but he was vaguely content to be and to do both.

And then, he had gone on that fateful trip to Kernsburg, and suddenly, all the people he had admired and trusted seemed to be revealed as Lagans. Hestefan, whom his father had spoken of and Moril had privately admired, had attempted several times to kill Noreth-who-was-really-Maewen. Keril had tried to force Mitt to do the same. Wend, his own ancestor and namesake, had forsaken them. All around him, the danger seemed to be coming from those Moril should have been able to trust. It must have been how Manaliabrid and The Adon and Osfameron had felt, centuries ago, but it wore on Moril rather more than it had Osfameron. That was the beginning, when his mind had begun to change.

But, Brid and Kialan had still been a safe subject, for a short time. Even when she'd married him, things had seemed simple enough on that front. Sure, there was the occasional assassin who didn't seem to understand that Kialan was Keril's son, sure, but a supporter of the new king. And also those who knew that Kialan supported the new king instead of his own father. Moril had tried to protect his brother-in-law and older sister as best he could, but he was not Osfameron (even though he _was_ ). He did not perform any particularly noteworthy feats with the cwidder, after Flennpass. Much later, he wondered if he'd perhaps held back _because_ of Flennpass.

Most of his feats of magic came instead from his attempts to help Mitt hunt down Kankredin. The cwidder might have been made for just this task, by an Osfameron who'd realised that Kankredin was all in pieces, but not truly destroyed. There was power, especially in the deepest string, that would allow him to sometimes crush a pocket on his own, without Mitt's intervention. He was not just the one who kept his ears open and _listened_. He was not only the one who _led_. He would not have been able to stand it if he had only been a guide. It would have been too much like journeying with Wend down the Green Roads to Kernsburg. He did not want to be Wend.

Brid and Kialan had at last died of old age, having accomplished much, and Moril, who could not hide that he was Undying, as Mitt could hide (his namesake had been the Old-Young Old Ammet, after all, not the forever-young musician Mage Mallard), was already wandering most days, sometimes coming across Mitt, particularly after Mitt was "dead" and "buried". Mitt had reigned for three-quarters of a century—enough to ensure stability in the newly reunified Dalemark, before quietly slipping away, as he surely had learnt to do as a child, growing up in Holand.

They had never encountered Wend, no matter how far or wide they roamed. Cennoreth stayed in her house at Dropthwaite, and would occasionally provide them with information, when she had it, and they were there. He supposed that Mitt had gone to speak with her when he had realised that he was Undying. Moril had gotten by on his own. What little he knew of the Undying, he knew from his tales, and from his and Mitt's experience, with the occasional hint from Cennoreth. It was not much to go on, but Mitt did not have any better luck than he.

It was after Mitt "died" that they could properly root out the pockets of Kankredin that still endured. Moril had begun to get a feel of it, came to recognise Kankredin's _voice_ , his appearance, the way that he thought. The cwidder was useful for revealing him, no matter how he hide himself. Moril thought that he was being useful.

He was not very like Osfameron. He was never the focus of anyone's gaze. He slipped past their notice—that wasn't to say that people didn't see him when they passed him on the street, or even that they didn't realise that he was there when they defeated another pocket. but somehow, that all the credit went to Mitt. And Moril found that he didn't mind. He did not mind obscurity, as he knew that Osfameron would have.

He didn't use the cwidder for great workings very often, and he didn't crave for the attention (the worship) of the people of Dalemark, and his sister was mortal, and both she and the Adon died of natural causes. He kept these facts as if to tally them up, because he no longer wanted to be part of the old stories. Perhaps, he'd once only wished to tag along with Osfameron and The Adon to record their stories, and not to interfere or to become friends with them or to change history. It had been too impossible, and his mother too insistent on pulling him out of his daydreams, to know for sure what he had once wanted.

If he had wanted this, once, he no longer did. Osfameron was content with it, Moril supposed, and that meant that he was not following in the footsteps of his namesake, as Cennoreth had once suggested.

He tried to tell himself this, but he felt instead that he was just a muted, diminished version of his ancestor—his strength sapped from him as a boy, and therefore never to reach Osfameron's heights (although he should have). He should have been great—he had always _meant_ to be great—but he instead accompanied great people doing important things, and recorded it, when he dared, for posterity, as a Singer was meant to, but could never bring himself to admit to any personal involvement.

And then, a few years ago, Wend had taken a job at the Tannoreth Palace as a tour guide for the museum. It had been a shock, the first time that Wend had locked up, and then turned to face him—no different except in dress and his new, unfamiliar accent, from the man who had abandoned them all on the Green Roads.

"Well, that was a foolish thing to do," he said to Moril's portrait. "What did you let them make an image of you for? You must have known better by then."

Moril had, at the time, rather thought he'd be allowed to help the future generations of kings with their continued struggles against Kankredin. He had not expected for Kankredin—and indeed, all of the Undying—to fall to the wayside, dismissed as children's stories and primitive misinterpretations, as dramatisations of real events. Nor had he anticipated that the royal line would diminish in importance, the monarchy little more than a figurehead after not even two centuries. It had been so important for so long—a source of hope, a goal, a dream, a thing to unite and to divide the entire country. Now, it was just a name.

It took several such nights for him to realise that Wend was the same man who was his own ancestor, and to think that maybe he should reply. Moril kept being called away from his thoughts and plans on the Green Road—distracted. He would later learn that Kankredin was amassing at the Tannoreth Palace during his fits of distraction, although neither he nor Wend knew it at the time.

Here was his own ancestor, pretending to be some new college graduate security guard. Only when no one was around did Wend dare to speak freely to him, but speak he did. Moril could hardly stop him. But it left him with a sourer, sinking feeling, to hear the bitterness with which his former idol spoke, and to know that Wend blamed _Mitt_ for Noreth's death, yet be unable to fix things.

"It wasn't _Mitt_ ," he snapped, one time. Moril was rarely angry, and his was always a cool, collected anger. He knew what he was doing, and was never lost in the heat of the moment. "You should speak to him about it!"

Because, surely, Wend knew that Mitt was Undying. But, Wend had been dismissive of Moril, too. He had the same jaded, betrayed sort of defeat about him that Moril was used to seeing in the mirror. Moril did not often look in mirrors for just this reason, but he knew that was the expression he'd had in his portrait. A sort of melancholy, wistful air. Somehow, Wend being so aggrieved made Moril's own feelings more acute. It really drove home that they were both quite similar, if different, people.

There was something wrong with Wend, a reason that he wouldn't listen, but Wend was too cunning for Moril to figure out what.

Over the next few years, Moril gathered that Wend thought Moril was a traitor to the crown, but was quite as stubborn as Moril, and refused to hear anything that contradicted the assumptions he'd already drawn. With an effort, Moril could sometimes draw him into the present enough to learn more about what was happening at the palace, but it felt _wrong_ to do this—perhaps because his mother had so often done the same to him. More often, he asked about the past. Wend would almost become a different person, then, shrugging off the cares of centuries. But, Moril did not quite dare to ask about the stories closest to his own heart. He knew, as he often did without knowing quite how, that something was _wrong_ about Wend.

He did not quite put it together on his own.

* * *

It was a shock when Maewen arrived, young and eager, with a sort of distracted haste to her. He saw her glance at his portrait without a flicker of recognition, and then turn back to it, studying it. She thought something over, and came to a decision.

And asked Wend about him a few nights later.

But then, just last week, Mitt had been called in in haste (by _Wend_ , of all people!) to deal with a huge pocket of Kankredin. There had been no time for Moril to even drop what he had been doing and follow. He would never have made it in time. Mitt was closer.

After, a very different sort of Maewen had come into the display room where his portrait hung. She _looked_ over at his portrait, a sort of regret burning in her eyes, and he knew that it was her, even as Wend spoke to her. And, Wend had been different, too. He'd reclaimed the cwidder, and the feeling hanging about him—it wasn't what it had been, the past years. It wasn't even as it had been on the Green Roads. There was something new there that Moril had never seen on him, before—or perhaps, only a glimpse.

He'd stopped being Wend, for one thing, and become Osfameron again. He was vast and powerful and an overwhelming, crushing presence. It made Moril feel rather smaller even than he had. But, there was a serene confidence to him, too, that had also been missing, and purpose.

And, he'd _apologised_ to Moril, for the burden that Moril had borne from his childhood until he'd been able to shrug it off in good conscience, certain that Mitt would not let anyone use it again. He'd had the thought that he should make his own musical instrument, and he had, one less alarming than Osfameron's cwidder. He'd found magic of his own, and used that in the latter years, instead of the cwidder, to fight Kankredin. It was as if the cwidder had been a stepping stone or catalyst for abilities Moril had already possessed.

Osfameron had left his post at the Tannoreth Palace, and Maewen had gone down to Dropthwaite to visit Cennoreth, and Mitt had made it clear that they now were running out of time to clear out what remained of Kankredin.

There wasn't much of him left. All of it was in the North now, which struck Moril as a bit ironic, with how the South had been firmly in Kankredin's grasp for so long. Moril had located the latest pocket, himself. It was in a small town by a train station—Orilsway. Given what he now knew about Wend, it seemed cruelly appropriate. Kankredin was the sort to rub in the fall of one of Dalemark's most beloved folk heroes.

It occurred to Moril that he'd been reminiscing for some time. Mitt was late. Now, why would that be? It could not just be that Moril was such a way from the Tannoreth Palace. There was a time when that would have been true, but Alk's Irons had covered over the Green Roads. You could get from the coast to Kernsburg in less than a day.

It felt odd to do, anymore, but there was a waystone, here. It made for a good place to lean back and wait (and think). Moril slung his arm through the hole as he pulled himself up. People tended to overlook the Undying. It was easy to do, even for him.

He blinked, at this thought, and turned to look at the other side of the stone.

"I thought I'd join you," Osfameron said, sounding mild, but looking utterly wretched.

_How_ _ **dared**_ _he?_ Moril wanted to demand. Showing up here after selling out to Kankredin and destroying the peace the last years? Moril had strong feelings, and they lasted. He could well hold a grudge against Wend, until the end of time, if he so chose. But, he knew that that would be being like Wend. He'd resolved himself against just this quite some time ago. Besides, Kankredin had fooled them, too—him and Mitt, and Maewen….

"I'm not the one to ask," Moril said, instead, his voice a bit colder than he'd meant.

Wend stared back at him, wide-eyed, with an expression of injured innocence. "I said I'm _sorry_ ," he protested, sounding rather huffy and petulant. Perhaps, if you were Undying, there was no need ever to grow up.

"Maewen could've died," Moril pointed out.

"Maewen forgave me," Wend said, looking as if he might be about to flounce into a sulk.

Moril gave it up. He knew that it was the truth. He had already been told this. "Where's Mitt, then?" he asked.

For the first time, Wend showed not a hint of even subdued resentment at the mention of Mitt. "He's waiting," Osfameron said. "There was something I needed to teach you. It's a bit—" He visibly searched for a word. "—noisy. Violent, I mean. At least in the beginning. Have you ever heard of Peace Piping?"

Moril _had_. It was in some of the oldest tales, the ones that were all in fragments, that told of the earliest days, of King Hern and the king's procession, the first one, and the building of Kernsburg. It was a lost art, which some people (most people, including the Singers of Moril's era), had disbelieved even existed. There was a sort of vague thrill that Moril hadn't felt in years—the promise of learning a new song. Moril knew what Osfameron was offering. A quite literal peace offering.

* * *

Peace Piping was difficult. It was emotional work, sympathetic magic. You had to feel those strenuous emotions of war in the beginning—the hatred and the rage and the fear and the battlelust, and let them fill and cloud your mind, filtering them down into the pipes. Osfameron had at least seemed impressed that Moril had made his own set of pipes. He'd offered to make some for Moril, regardless, as Moril's wouldn't make a high enough note. And, he already had the materials. Moril watched as he bound the reeds together, explaining as he did, and then left him be for a few minutes to try to figure out the notes on his own.

The first notes, at the beginning of the tune, were always shrill and fierce as a battle cry, a jarring shrilling that made Moril wish to cover his ears, and it was _loud_. You had to put a lot of emotion into the entire work, but the emotions of the beginning were not the ones you wanted to wind up with, so you gradually worked the music and your own emotions into a calm lull. It was hard to both let yourself channel those crucial first emotions and still wean away from them. None of them were conducive to rational thought, the memory that you weren't evoking them deliberately to get rid of them. It was a good thing that Moril tended towards cold anger. He could pour in fear and hatred and violent rage without forgetting his goal.

Osfameron ran him through it a few times, before nodding his approval. They were both utterly spent. Osfameron had not done any such thing since the road to Gardale. Moril was not as strong as he, and peace piping was both a magical and an emotional strain. All that reliving of bad news! He couldn't blame Mitt for wanting to stay away. Moril had thought more of the war of reunification tonight than he had in over a century. Mitt would have thought of Bloody Hobin, his stepfather.

"Kankredin takes his power from chaos and anarchy, and thrives on war," Osfameron told Moril. "It's why he foments rebellion, and why the South under his hold was so full of suffering and pain. If you take that away, it will weaken him for your friend. These pockets have been gathering for a long time. They're stronger than you were dealing with before, and cunning enough to hide. With the cwidder, they won't be able to hide."

Osfameron held up his cwidder unnecessarily. Revealing the pockets was one of the tasks Moril had undertaken when he'd been traveling with Mitt, before….

"I'll help you with the Peace Piping, the first few times—just until you have the hang of it," Osfameron finished, with a languid smile. There was this to be said about Peace Piping: after a few hours of practicing, Moril had found himself in greater peace than he'd found since Flennpass. Wend had a familiar dreamy, mild attitude, and did not feel at all like a crushing powerful member of the Greater Undying.

"Peace Piping is supposed to be a lost skill," said Moril, still full of a strange, almost childlike wonder. Osfameron gave a smug smile in return, with none of the polite deference Moril remembered from the journey south.

"Tanamil taught me, long ago," he said. There was a wistfulness about him, again, but Moril had to know. It was like the old stories, come back into importance again.

"'Tanamil'?" Moril repeated. He didn't think he knew that name.

"I think you might have known of him better as Alhammitt," Osfameron said. "The Undying do tend to accumulate names. He married my sister, Robin. You'd know her as Libby Beer, I suppose."

Libby Beer and Old Ammet! Moril understood, now. Those were the Undying who had guided Mitt to Hannart. They protected Mitt, too—theirs were the names Mitt called on for help quashing pockets of Kankredin. If Libby Beer was really Wend's _sister_ , then why hadn't he trusted Mitt?

"Robin always knows things. She always has. She must have known that Mitt was destined to become the King of Dalemark. She told me off on the way to Gardale. But, of course, it wasn't the first time I'd disagreed with one of my siblings over who should be king—"

Moril was staring at the name, Libby Beer, before him. It didn't sound very similar to Robin. He saw how you could get "Old Ammet" from "Alhammitt", and a name like "Tanamil" could not be anyone's proper name. but Libby Beer—even if you assumed a sort of stutter, far back, that still left a word like "Libbeer". He couldn't see it.

Those Undying, in particular, seemed to have a lot of names. Still, there was a name that Libby Beer's put him in mind of. Was she called anything else?

"Lalla," Osfameron supplied helpfully. He did not seem quite clear on what Moril even was attempting.

Lalibbeer? Lilabeer? Liabeer?

He paused.

Cennoreth was Osfameron's sister, which seemed to mean that she was also this Robin's—who was Libby Beer. There was a difference, Moril suspected, between primary names and secondary names. Brid was short for Manaliabrid, and that was the name Brid used, so she was bound into Manaliabrid's tale. Mitt had become king by taking the name of Amil. Moril himself was fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be named after the same one of the Undying, twice. Libby Beer could be a Manaliabrid without being drawn into the tale of Manaliabrid, couldn't she? If even Brid could?

Kialan and Brid had died of old age, Moril tallied off. Liabeer sounded more like Manaliabrid than Mayelbridwen did, and Cennoreth recognised that as a form of her daughter's name.

But, something still didn't fit right. Perhaps it was because it was not really her name at all, but Moril didn't see how Alhammitt was the Adon. He'd think of it more, later.

* * *

They met Mitt on the way to Orilsway. Osfameron had the audacity (the cheek?) to make some comment when they came upon Mitt—to the effect of asking if Mitt was going his way. As if anyone needed a reminder that that town was named for him!

Moril had tried to teach Mitt how to play the cwidder, but that had failed. Now, Osfameron was offering to teach him Peace Piping. "I suppose it would have been more useful when you were fighting those uprisings as king."

He did not seem to resent Mitt for earning the crown, now.

Osfameron was quite insistent that they would need all these tricks, now that Kankredin was in his last throes. Moril had to admit that he was quite right.

They came to an Orilsway that might have been a war zone. It was utter chaos, with brawling in the streets (and guns!), looting, the deafening roar as people shouted insults and threats at one another and things broke. Furniture and windows, mostly, but there was also a house or two on fire. It was the worst Moril had seen in at least a century.

They'd needed the Peace Piping to calm the rioters and their victims, both. In the usual way, no one seemed aware of their presence, but they seemed to sense the music, even if they couldn't hear it. Fights broke apart, people moved to put out the fires, the racket of breaking furniture and screams subsided. People began to return to their homes, perhaps wondering about their own violent acts.

The town square emptied, Mitt turned to Osfameron, who had already taken the cwidder to hand. "Wider than the world, or small as in a nut," he said, with a secretive smile, as he strummed a chord. "Chaos and carnage, caused by one secretive and shadowed by the sea, not here. Materialise, ancient malice, show yourself. By the One, open Orilsway to the truth!"

He seemed to be pushing through layers of netted spellwork without a care. The old structure of incanted song-speech came naturally to him. It shouldn't be surprising, but it put a weary, tranquil Moril into a sort of awestricken stupefaction regardless.

It helped that they were suddenly in moss-covered rubble, with the river rushing nearby (The River!), and the sea close enough to hear the waves against the shore.

The peace was shattered wen Osfameron succeeded in breaking through Kankredin's invisibility, revealing his presence. He was spread out in a sort of vapour, and took up thrice as much space as he ought, but he was stretched thin.

Al the same, Mitt had by now done this so often that he knew just what to do. The amount of havoc that Kankredin had wrought meant that this was one of the stronger pockets. Mitt was instantly throwing out his hand and shouting the greater of the two names (as Moril had learnt to recognise from experience).

The ground erupted under their feet, and the sea rushed in—not the far-off ocean that they could hear from the distance, but a displaced geyser of seawater. It left behind brine and seaweed and drenched everyone thoroughly. Osfameron almost seemed pleased.


	3. Mitt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitt defeats Kankredin, and people start dying. Also, enter the creepy weaver Cenblith.

Mitt understood nothing about cwidders, but he took to the simpler pipes easily enough. It was a good thing, too, as they needed all the power they could get to subdue Kankredin. It had been different before Mitt had imposed the four-year time limit on them, both because they'd had as much time as they needed to recover and hunt down the pockets of Kankredin, and because the imposition of a time limit coincided with Kankredin growing more dangerous (the destruction of his huge concentration at the Tannoreth Palace seemed to have unsettled him).

It took most of those four years to destroy Kankredin, and when they managed it at last, Mitt did not even feel that he should properly celebrate. Osfameron had stayed until Kankredin had been defeated, but the loss of Old Ammet and Libby Beer hit him hard. Mitt might have asked why—there were the beginnings of camaraderie and companionship amongst the three of them, now, and he almost dared—but it was Moril who filled him in, with that usual brooding quiet.

It was Mitt's fault. He had imposed this time limit, giving no one a chance to recover. Kankredin was a tough opponent even if you took your time. Old Ammet had appeared to him outside Hannart to warn him that he and Libby Beer were at their limits.

"I believe that this may be the end of our ability to help you," he said. Mitt had thought that this was only on account of his no longer having a use or need for their names, as with Kankredin defeated, and Dalemark at peace, Mitt's vow was fulfilled, his journey at last over.

He should have known better, as he muttered to himself. The Undying were never that direct.

He didn't know rightly where he was. He and Moril had parted ways that same night that Old Ammet and Libby Beer had died. For all Mitt knew, Moril had gone with his ancestor.

Old Ammet had appeared, faded out and soaking wet with his own seawater, to say his farewells. They didn't make much sense to Mitt.

"Kankredin is defeated. Your promise has been fulfilled." Sure, Mitt understood that much. But the last part? "Don't trust her. There is no time. Go to—"

Old Ammet had not had the time even to finish his sentence. Mitt didn't know whom he was not supposed to trust, or what destination Old Ammet had tried to set for him before death had separated them for good. He wished that the Undying could be a bit clearer when delivering their messages.

It hit him, painfully, that he was truly alone, as he hadn't been since he had left Holand. It was an unfamiliar feeling. He was used to the thought of the Undying watching over him.

Robin, Osfameron's _sister_! Mitt would scarce have believed it, had Moril not said it. It made sense of them each going their separate ways—Osfameron to grieve, and perhaps inform the witch Cennoreth, and Moril….

Well, Moril made less sense, but Mitt knew that Moril had had some sort of crush on Maewen. He must not want to be there when Mitt returned to her.

It had been over three and a half years. Mitt had defeated Kankredin. Dalemark was safe. It was safer than it had been at any point in its history. The people might not know what to do with themselves.

Mitt would have been giddy with victory, if not for the loss of his mentor-guardians.

He turned a cobblestone path and nearly ran into a boy with wriggly fair hair, back against the wall, with his head against his knees, hiding his face. Despite that Mitt couldn't see the boy that well, somehow he looked familiar. It made Mitt wary.

"Do you know where she is?" the boy asked, suddenly, and Mitt realised that what Mitt had taken for a boy of about fifteen was in truth about Maewen's age—how old she would be, now. Not as old as Mitt, but older than he'd thought.

The man looked up at Mitt. There was something familiar about the sharpness of the features, and the hooked nose, but Mitt just couldn't place it. Every human being he'd met in his lifetime was dead (he rather suspected that Maewen was herself Undying). He ticked off the Undying he had ever met, and thought, with a bitter pang, that they were all accounted for. The grief from losing Old Ammet was that fresh.

"Who?" he managed to ask. It had taken a lot of concentration, going over all the Undying in his mind without saying their names aloud. Mitt was not cut out for silent contemplation.

"The girl who dances at the club in the evenings. She has an apartment somewhere near her. I can hear the music when she practises. I haven't been able to find her, though."

His voice sounded odd—hollow, emotionless. It gave Mitt a bad feeling, but not about the man. He thought someone must have done something to him, and wished for the help of the Greater Undying. Libby Beer knew things, and gave good advice.

The only conclusion Mitt could think of to draw was that this man should not be left on his own. He had a sort of delirious, drunken gait to his walk, and he wobbled when he stood. Maybe, if Mitt helped him find this girl, she'd take care of him, better.

"I'll help you look," Mitt offered. There was nowhere he needed to be at the moment. "My name's Mitt."

"My name's Amil King," said the boy wretchedly, and Mitt shivered at the coincidence in names. He considered leaving, then and there.

But, he couldn't leave this boy named for him all alone muttering deliriously about some strange woman Mitt didn't know. He felt…responsible, somehow. Perhaps, it was that given name combined with the surname _King_ —the name taken by the landless servants of King Amil the Great when they joined the royal household. "King's man".

They had walked to the end of the street before Mitt noticed it. A sort of _tugging_ , as if he were at the wrong end of a lasso. It was an uncomfortable feeling. The mystery man seemed to feel it, too. They started off, unerring, through the darkened streets until they came to an apartment. They climbed the stairs.

* * *

Mitt knew that they had made a mistake (that _he_ had made a mistake) the moment she opened the door to let them in, smiling brightly at both of them.

"Oh, there you are!" she cried. "I've been waiting so long for you! Please, come in, come in! You can help me with my recital."

She whirled away from them in a flurry of pale yellow hair and swirling skirts.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your names," she whirled back around to say.

"Don't tell her your name—" Mitt hissed to the stranger he'd followed into this mess.

"Amil King," the man said, in a dreamy, unaware sort of voice.

The woman clapped her hands and turned to Mitt. "And you?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she was being quite rude, calling them here, and then making them follow her in and tell her their names. Indeed, because Mitt could not think a thing in silence, even now, he opened his mouth to demand answers to just these questions, but then he thought of what Old Ammet had said right before he died. He understood the completed sentence now, he thought. It must refer to this woman. The unfinished sentence remained a mystery. But—

"Kialan," Mitt burst out with the first name that came to mind. He didn't know why it was that name, but thought that Kialan wouldn't have minded. "Tankol."

He must be thinking of that ride south to Kernsburg, long ago. That was no help!

But, she accepted the name, and Amil was too busy staring vacantly at her to notice that Mitt had said anything at all.

"You play music, don't you?" the woman asked him, staring earnestly up at him with wide green eyes. She thrust a cup of tea into his hands. He blinked down at them.

How did she know? It was something he'd only recently learnt, and people did not generally notice him at it, anyway.

"You have to help me practise," she insisted, as if they were drawing to the end of a familiar argument. "Play for me?"

Amil stood at the sidelines, and watched. He might have been catatonic, but his eyes tracked her movements across the tiles of her kitchen floor.

* * *

Her door was never locked. She did not keep them in a cage or prison cell. She let them wander her house as they pleased. And yet, somehow, Mitt couldn't leave. He knew that the four years were almost spent, and still he couldn't leave.

Was it because he still felt a need to look after the man he'd met in the streets? That was absurd. It must be something else.

Magic. Power. Whoever she was, she was brimming with it. Mitt had meant to escort Amil here, and then leave. Weeks later, here he still was, going through his days in something of a daze, looking for a way past barriers that didn't exist, trying to find a little wiggle room to escape, and take Amil with him. Or even just escape on his own. He hadn't felt this trapped since the Holy Islands, when—

* * *

Her dances were wild and full of energy. She moved like a whirlwind. And she was always in motion. She must sleep sometimes, but—

He had no memory of it.

She was always pulling at Amil, flirting, tugging on his arms, leading him out of Mitt's sight. Mitt didn't want to let this bewildered stranger out of his sight. He didn't trust her, whoever this woman was. He always meant to follow, and somehow never could. Time ticked away.

* * *

"They don't appreciate it," she said to him one day. "The past. They think that magic and lore are all just silly fantasies. 'This is the real world', my parents told me. No one takes it seriously, anymore. Maybe they'll believe me when I show them that I've managed to catch two of the Greater Undying!"

She laughed, and wouldn't listen to him when he said that he was only human. He doubted that she'd listen if he owned to being Undying, but not one of the _gods_ of Dalemark.

* * *

What she was doing was magic. She had admitted to it. She was a witch in a world that didn't believe in _gods_ anymore, let alone immortality or magic. He knew enough about the old lore and old magic to know that the main reason he was not in the same boat as Amil was that Amil had given her his true name, and Mitt had given her a false one. He kept thinking that Amil might give him away, but the only name that Amil had for him was "Mitt". It would take a little work, at least, to try to put together what his full name was. She couldn't arrive at his surname thus. He was, for the moment, safe.

But, he had to take the initiative.

He knew that she went out dancing every night of the week, and was gone for about three hours each time. She had a schedule. He would have to wait for several minutes to be sure she'd truly gone, and then take an hour or so to search her house. (He knew better than to think that he would be able to leave, even without her there. Speaking to Amil, let alone asking him for help, was a hopeless task. He moved as if he were dreaming and drunk, even now.)

There must be some clue as to what she was doing, how she was keeping them here. He would have to make sure that Amil was not around. He didn't trust the man who seemed entirely in that woman's thrall.

* * *

It did not take him long to find her "centre of operations". It was in the loft, on the second storey, up a ladder from the part of the house Mitt was ordinarily stuck in. He had to blink and stare for quite some time before he could make his eyes believe what he was seeing.

It was as if he'd stepped into another world. There were tapestries all along the walls, all in muted colours and smooth silk. There were trees and birds and pastoral scenes, mostly. He had expected, given her earlier admission, to see scenes of past myths and legends—perhaps including his own kingship. Perhaps these were depicted in one of the tapestries? laid across the top of some sort of table, as if for studying.

Beside that, she had a great many tools that Mitt could not identify, all wooden and shiny with care. He knew just enough to think that they had something to do with textiles or making fabric. He'd seen similar instruments at Cennoreth's house at Dropwater. but the only thing he knew on sight were the looms. Cennoreth had raised such a fuss over yarn at her loom two centuries ago that it had stuck in Mitt's mind.

He was moving towards the loom, thinking that the weaving there (for what little he knew of it) looked different from the tapestries around the wall,, or the…rugs? draped over the furniture everywhere. There were tables and chairs and stools, but they were hidden under all the weaving. He wondered if it were all the girl's making, and decided that that made the most sense. She was quite industrious.

He bumped into a hidden piece of furniture on his way there, and noticed something draped over it. It was a dress, homespun, gathered at the waist, with loose pleats all the way down, of a deep, sea-green. He had never noticed what the girl was wearing, but the glimpses he had of her in his memory suggested that she was always wearing a dress similar to this one. He would have moved onwards, ignoring it, but he saw what he thought were letters. He stopped to examine it more closely, and saw that there were indeed letters woven into it—letters and _words_. The shape of letters had changed a bit in two hundred years, and by this he knew that she was writing in the script of his own time.

He leant over it, and read: "My name is Cenblith, and all I write shall become true."

Cenblith! Was that the woman's name? There was something in Dalemark's history about a Cenblith, wasn't there? A woman from prehistory, long before the founding of the Kingdom of Dalemark, long before King Hern. Wasn't she a witch, and a villainess?

"Flaming—!" he began, but cut himself off. Even in this partial daze the woman had him in, the loss was still too near. He could not say the first word without the second following in his mind, even as he cast about for something else to say. He went on a little rant with no audience.

"You would think parents would know better than to name their kids after famous villains from history! Even if they don't think she's real. Don't they know that something like this is bound to happen? People get drawn into the stories of the Undying because they share the same name all throughout history. At least I had a choice! More or less!"

He felt a bit better at this, enough to notice another of the woman's homespun soft coarse dresses nearby. This one had symbols on it, some of them familiar, but he couldn't read them. He knew just enough to know that they were in the Old Writing. Moril had studied it, having inherited that cwidder of his, but Mitt had never bothered with any of it. It was hard enough keeping hiss attention on normal writing to read it.

There must be a book nearby that she used as a reference. She would not dare to bring it with her everywhere, where it could be lost or stolen, and she seemed to trust the security of her house. And well she might, when neither he nor Amil could escape!

A few minutes searching found an old leatherbound book which offered insights into translating words to symbols in the Old Writing. It was mostly writing like that—not an alphabet, where each letter was a sound, but a logograph, where each symbol was a word. Her name, however, had been painstakingly disassembled and put back together into Old Writing. He had to take quite a while to read even what little she had woven into this dress.

"I am Cenblith, and I weave the truth. Through my weaving I bind the future to my desires."

That was disturbing enough. There was no time to read more, so Mitt carefully replaced her book, and disappeared back down the ladder, with a glance at the work currently on her loom. He'd have to try to muddle through _that_ , next.

* * *

"I am Cenblith, and I begin my weaving. This is my story of how I summoned the Undying to me in mortal form, and bound them to my will. I called to myself Amil of the Undying, the Greatest of them all, for only through his work may I achieve my greatest desires."

He read these words over a period of days, but it was the last sentence that truly concerned him. _Amil, Greatest of the Undying_. She must mean _The One_! No wonder he looked familiar, but not recognisable! And he was not at all aware of himself.

He would have read further, but then Cenblith caught him unawares, blocking him from escape by hiding, he thought, and then climbing up the ladder that was the only way in or out.

"I thought someone had tried to tamper with my spells!" she cried, hair flying as she shook furiously in anger. For once, her body was still, and he could see that she wore a plain, dark blue version of those same dresses he'd seen here and there around this workroom. It did not have any writing on it, Old or otherwise.

For the first time, he could see her properly. She was quite young—about the age he'd assigned to Amil King, and he had to wonder why she lived alone. Perhaps her parents had tired of her twisted dreams, and kicked her out. She seemed to have no trouble making ends meet, despite that. Her eyes were a sort of bright green, and her hair that pale flaxen yellow. She was smaller than he'd taken her for, at first. She had a huge presence.

"Then, it was you, Halian! I might have known. It's too bad! How rude of you!" she shouted at him. Mitt knew, by now, that Amil would not be disturbed by any noise she made.

"My name's not Halian," he said, blinking dumbly. This had not gone at all as he had planned. He remembered a night long ago, sneaking in to steal The Adon's ring. He'd been careful, then. He'd had the skill to be thrice careful now, yet somehow Cenblith (that must be who she was) had known.

"Oh? What is it, then?" she asked, cocking her head with false sweetness and demurity.

"It's—" he remembered that he was keeping his name hidden from her. "Kialan."

"Oh, are we going by Northern names, only? How boring!" she said. "What are you doing in my private workroom, Kialan?"

There was almost the opportunity for a real conversation, here, with none of Cenblith's spells subduing his mind. That he knew of.

"I just thought I'd look around—you spend all your time with Amil King. I had to find something to do."

She laughed, then. "You were trying to find a way to stop me! Well, it won't work. I know your name, and I am a mistress of spell-weaving. I'll just have to bind you not to tell anyone what I'm doing. But I expected better manners from a _king_ , _Amil the Great_!"

He stood there in a sort of dreadful silence, feeling boxed in as he had on the way to Kernsburg. She'd known his name all along! It must be in the weaving—she'd called in _Amil_. That was one of _his_ names. He was a victim of circumstance.

"Of all the rotten—"

He would have attacked her, with whatever tools were at his disposal, but he found that when he attempted any move to harm her, his body simply would not move. It was not even like being surrounded by mud. It was like being encased in stone.

"His name's not Amil," said Amil King, vaguely, from behind him. "His name's Mitt."

Mitt was fiercely glad that he hadn't told Amil King his full name. Cenblith had enough tools as it was.

Cenblith turned to Amil and beamed at him. "Oh, well done!" she cried, turning from her stool-seat and opening her arms to him. Mitt reminded himself that Amil (The One!) was just as much a thrall as he. It was small assurance., but at least it reminded him not to take any action against Amil. It was tempting to hit _someone_ , whomever he could.

And he knew, then and there, what he'd been telling himself couldn't be the case was true: he would not be going to Kernsburg for Maewen. Cenblith would not let him go. He would never see Maewen again.

He climbed back down the ladder and did not look back.

"If ever we're allowed to meet again, forget inflation!" he told the empty air. "As long as you'll have me, I don't care how old you are."

It was a stupid, small thought to be having at the time, but he had not yet put to himself the importance of his current predicament. What he needed to do.

* * *

What he needed to do was to find a way to save Amil (The One). That was the most important thing—more important even than what happened to him. He knew this. The One was truly the most powerful being in Dalemark, one of its gods. With Amil's power, Cenblith really could do whatever she wished. Even if he found a way out, he'd have to give it up for The One. It didn't matter even that The One had laid the burden of his own Name on Mitt.

In order to do that, Mitt needed to understand Cenblith's spells. but she was as bad as her word. After that day, Mitt never seemed to be able to climb the ladder to her workroom again.

He was in a state of distraction (he had missed the reunion with Maewen by some months, now), when a ray of hope arrived in the form of his childhood friend, Moril Clennenson. Moril had not been called by Cenblith's spell, and was immune to her influence. He knew that something was wrong at once. He had, it seemed, properly scouted the area to know when Cenblith should not be home. Mitt could have almost cried with relief. Moril knew how to read the Old Writing, and his special ability was seeing through tricks.

"Does anyone know you're here?" he asked first, frantic. It was just in case Cenblith came back early. He liked to think that someone would be looking for Moril, at the very least.

"What is the matter with you? Everyone wondered where you had disappeared to. Maewen—But what have you been doing, all this time?"

"Never mind that!" Mitt snapped. "We don't have much time. She'll be back in only a couple of hours! Does anyone know where you are?"

Moril seemed to understand that this was important. "Osfameron. And Cennoreth. They know that I'm looking for you. I think only Osfameron knows where I am, though, somehow—"

That was enough for Mitt.

"Go up the ladder, hurry! Tell me what it says—the weaving on the loom," Mitt said, skipping unnecessary words. Cenblith would not be gone forever, and she seemed to have some way of knowing about intruders that Mitt was not aware of. But, he could not quite find the words to explain this to Moril. He knew it was more of the witch's doing.

Moril saw how important this was, and shimmied up the ladder, taking only half a moment to notice the loom. He was gone an uncomfortably long time. When he came back down the ladder to recite what Cenblith had written, his face was grim. Mitt knew it was worse even than what he'd been able to make out.

"She thinks you're some sort of weaker version of The One—like me and Osfameron!" said Moril. "This is what her weaving says: 'I am Cenblith, and I begin my weaving. This is my story of how I summoned the Undying to me in mortal form, and bound them to my will. I called to myself Amil of the Undying, the Greatest of them all, for only through his work may I achieve my greatest desires. The past is forgotten, it's power diminished. None remain who could counterweave my spells. They are stronger than time,

"'The One came to me on an evening, and I recognised him at once. He knew right away that we were meant to be together. We were stronger together. He helped me to reshape the world to my liking. He gave me his love and companionship, and the children who will be my heirs. I bound both him and the younger One not to harm me or my family. The One destroyed Kernsburg with a wrenching of the Earth, as he remade it in the old days, so it was made new again, according to its old form. The world became full of future and promise, as it was during the forgotten days of prehistory. The One made a River to divide—'

"That is as much as she has had a chance to write, yet. We must stop her before she can write more. What she has done is quite enough," Moril said, dismayed.

"Why? How important is this weaving?" Mitt asked. He still did not quite understand.

"Weaving is one of the oldest and most powerful forms of magic there is. Future events written mostly in the past tense, to ensure that it is certain to happen," Moril said, still in that solemn voice. "She'll use the others, soon. You must be ready by then. Reawaken The One's knowledge of who he is. He must _not_ be bound."

Mitt gasped, understanding. "An effigy!" he said. It made a horrible sort of sense. Moril nodded. He looked paler than Mitt had seen him in years.

"I will leave you with a song. She hasn't forbidden you to play music, has she?"

"No. In fact, she encourages me to play for her so that she can dance."

Forced him, more like! But, he was sure that she had planned worse.

"I think this should be able to cut through whatever hold she has on his mind—at least to recall him to himself. But it won't last long. You'll have to choose your chance carefully."

The song was slow and deep, a low rumbling. Moril played it on his ordinary set of pipes that Osfameron hadn't made for him. Mitt scrambled to try to remember it.

"it doesn't have to be exact! Just try to find the same sort of feeling."

It was like Peace Piping, then. Mitt could do that. He and Moril ran through a series of notes and chords, anyway, trying to find the strongest combinations, to cut through whatever Cenblith had done.

They spent too long at it, in fact.

It was a good thing that Moril was quick on his feet, and kept a level head. That was not enough against Cenblith. She had not called for Moril, and had no hold on him, and she was cunning enough to realise that he posed a threat to her plans.

She pulled out a gun, and shot him, then finished him off with a sword. Ever afterwards, Mitt would wonder if either of them even existed. They seemed to vanish into nothingness, but then, so did Moril. It was horrible. He stood there shaking, and Cenblith beamed at him.

* * *

It's just as well for Mitt that making an effigy doesn't take very long, or he'd have run out of song long before Cenblith finished. As it was, there was time enough for her to work the clay, and for the One to come to himself enough to make actual demands of her before they were bound. He demanded that he be put into the fire (as clay must to be properly finished) once a year by her descendants, with a certain ritual phrase. "May the clay purge from you. Come again in your true strength." Moril's song seemed to have had an effect on Cenblith, as well, for she agreed, with a sort of errant dreaminess that made Mitt suspect that the effects of her spell had temporarily been displaced onto her. It really served her right! He wished that it would last.

The One bound her and the child she was carrying into that promise (Mitt tried not to think too hard on that), and the eldest heirs until some time in the future when The One would release them. It was good of him to think of how many descendants there would be in future years, and not to bind them all. All Dalemark might have been included eventually!

When Cenblith came to herself, she was furious at how she had been tricked, but she knew it was Mitt who had done it. That was bad for him. She gave him her sweetest, wickedest smile, and beckoned for him to follow her. And Mitt knew that that smile meant nothing good.


	4. Tanaqui

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duck and Tanaqui rescue Mitt from Cenblith. Tanaqui dies.

It seems a good idea, now, to check in on what was happening to the rest of Dalemark, whilst Mitt and The One were falling under the spell of the evil witch Cenblith.

Cenblith, as it turns out, had been taught by Kankredin prior to his destruction by Mitt, Moril, and Osfameron. He had seen her natural talent with weaving, and learnt of her plans for Dalemark, and approved of the chaos and suffering he knew would result from it. Had he endured, it would have provided immense energy for him. And thus, he taught her to weave power into her words, and to make spellcoats. He served as an idea board for her to construct her plans, and pointed out flaws. He taught her words and phrases of power, and gave her the three names of The One: Amil, Oreth, and Adon. Cenblith was cunning and powerful on her own, and Kankredin just made her even more formidable.

Tanaqui had known something was amiss for awhile. When Cenblith had bound The One into a mortal body, Tanaqui's weaving had shifted. The guiding hand she had always sensed in her weaving departed. They became plain old rugcoats, plainer, perhaps, than she had woven even as a little girl, when Robin had first taught her how to weave. The One had guided her hand and her shuttle for a very long time. She sensed his departure, and knew that something was wrong.

She set aside her yarn and stepped away from her loom, packing a bag for travel, preparing to leave her home here in Dropwater for the first time in over three centuries. She thought she hadn't left since before her brother Hern had died. Now, she set off along the Green Road, and hoped that Duck, in whatever way he always seemed to know things, had sensed that there was a problem.

There was something she needed to do first, however. Almost the last line with any power in it that she had woven spoke of Kernsburg being buried in an earthquake. She knew Maewen to be there, at the Tannoreth Palace, waiting for Mitt, as Tanaqui had herself suggested. In a few months, Maewen would have left for Dropwater, and been reunited with Mitt. As it was, she had taken up Kernsburg as a sort of haunt, ghosting through the Tannoreth Palace, looking at familiar friends who had died centuries before she was born, and doing quite a bit of research on the written history of Dalemark, which was not always very accurate.

It was winter, now, and school had let out for the holidays. Maewen was visiting her father, who was still the head curator of the museum at the Tannoreth Palace. The Undying had a knack for finding one another, and although Tanaqui had rarely been the one seeking after others (they usually came to Dropwater, instead), she still knew enough, she thought, to find Maewen.

Rescue crews had arrived on the scene by the time Tanaqui arrived, poring over the rubble for survivors. The city was all in huge blocks of solid rock and piles of rubble and brick. Survivors did not look likely. They were removing the dead, instead, and asking the few survivors to identify bodies.

"I know her," said Tanaqui, catching a glimpse of frizzy brown hair and freckles. Maewen looked much as she had back when she'd been fourteen. Her body was broken and mangled and twisted and covered in blood. It was not easy to kill the Undying, but a whole wall seemed to have fallen on her, and a metal bar had stabbed her in the stomach, somewhere.

Tanaqui had no trouble recognising her. She was not like humans. She was used to death. She could speak to the recovery crew quite placidly, even as her insides churned. "Her dad's the head curator at the Tannoreth Palace."

Dead. Tanaqui had encouraged her to wait, and to make the most of her life, and now it was over. Dead and gone. Nothing remained but to find Maewen's relatives, whoever they were, and to deliver the body.

She felt she owed it to the girl to answer the authorities, whatever questions she could answer about Maewen, her life, her family situation, next of kin. But, it was a bit of a holdup.

As she was leaving Kernsburg, determined to try to find either Mitt or her brother, Duck, Moril stepped into her path.

He had clearly felt the same things that she had, and said that Duck had set off on his own, to try to round up what remained of the Undying. He had kept his intentions to himself, but Tanaqui knew that this was an act of desperation.

Centuries ago, when she, Duck, and Gull had traveled the South (and into Haligland, the origin of the Heathens), they had made the acquaintance of many of the Undying. Most of them had offered their assistance in an emergency, but they preferred to keep out of human affairs. That Duck chose now to redeem that favour was an ill wind.

She did not tell this to Moril, who was distraught enough as it was. He had the subtlest way of showing it, going sort of pale, with lips pressed together. He was not like Duck, who would throw tantrums. Tanaqui suspected that, like her, he had come to Kernsburg to check on Maewen. He might have just arrived. Either way, he must know that Maewen was dead.

She remembered that he had a portrait in the Tannoreth Palace. He would have known when the earthquake happened. Perhaps, he had witnessed Maewen's death—

More than that, it was painful. Damage to an effigy seemed to cause some damage to the Undying whom it represented.

He was of noble blood, and it showed in the way he set all of that aside, to tell Tanaqui what he knew. Mitt vanished, and Duck gathering the Undying against a new threat.

"In Kredindale. Doesn't that have to be where they are?" he said, in almost calm. There was a certain poetry to it, as if the spirit of Kankredin continued to influence the affairs of Dalemark.

Tanaqui wished that she had been able to bring herself to leave her loom sooner, but its power had dwindled so slowly that she half-thought it was a fluke, and things would go back to normal. She had waited weeks, until words no longer came, there was no guiding hand, and she had to read about the earthquake here in Kernsburg to get her to realise that something had gone very wrong. Nothing like it had ever happened before. She was out of practise with the unexpected.

They parted ways, Moril heading to Kredindale, and Tanaqui to gather her supplies for what might be her final showdown.

* * *

There was another delay when they left Kernsburg by their separate routes: a massive upheaval shattered the railroad tracks and buried the Green Roads. Tanaqui now knew for certain that this was all planned by someone. She could think of only two disciplines that had such power as to move the earth itself. Duck was a musician who had once made mountains walk. Moril had done the same, with Duck's old cwidder. And Tanaqui herself, back when she'd been but a child, had woven the words The One had given her, and watched as The One had reshaped Dalemark. Duck was more than a match for any musician-mage. That left Tanaqui herself, and her weaving.

She was certain that it was a weaver who had done this. It was in how her own work had lost its power, as if someone else had stolen it from her—or woven something that contradicted her. Spellcoats and magic-weaving were lost arts. She was forced to the conclusion that Kankredin, himself a master weaver once, had shared this secret with a successor. All that Tanaqui could do was to put all of her own power into a single counterspell.

She returned to Dropwater, for the moment, and wove not a spellcoat, but a net. A net to curb her rival's powers and stop them from weaving any more magic. Spellcoats had their place, but they were distinctive. Their abilities were different from those of nets, whose sole purpose was to catch and to hold. She remembered Kankredin's nets of souls, and what they had done to the River. A modern mage would surely never expect such a thing. Kankredin had no reason to mention it.

Or, perhaps he had. It was the best Tanaqui could do. She finished her net and headed north, and came upon Duck on the way. He was like Moril, in that he did not show how badly the loss of the Green Roads—his charge—had hurt him. He did not seem to be in pain at all when he spoke, although she knew he grieved for Tanamil and Robin, even as she did. And Moril, as she learnt.

"Moril's ghost appeared to me," he said, when they met. He looked drawn and weary and injured. She knew that this latest loss had taken its toll. Moril was Duck's last true heir. "He found the one who's doing all this. Her name is Cenblith—like from those old stories! She's a weaver who lives in Kredindale. She killed Moril, and she has Mitt and—and The _One_ captive. He said that we have to save Mitt."

"Oh, Duck," Tanaqui sighed. She was out of the habit of consoling people after a loss. All she could say was, "I don't know what to do. I thought it might be a weaver doing this, so I made a net, like we used on Kankredin's mages. Did you gather The Undying?"

"Everyone I could find," Duck said grimly, in reply. Tanaqui looked ahead at the open expanse before them, and wished that Manaliabrid had not managed to disappear quite so completely.

* * *

Duck and Tanaqui have always made a good team. Tanaqui was generally content to let Duck take the credit even for all of her own work, and he rarely did, but it was a fact that raising the Adon from the dead—a deed credited to Osfameron in the legends—was something Tanaqui herself had done. All she'd had to do was unpick his death in her weaving. And, Duck had done the hard work of guiding his soul out of the River of Souls.

Duck had only been eight years old when he'd cut through the spells Kankredin had used to hide his ship off the coast. Cenblith was not as experienced as Kankredin, and she was not a mage, to Tanaqui's knowledge. That required passing through death, and Tanaqui wasn't sure how anyone could do that, in this day and age.

Duck cut through her protections and the illusions that hid her apartment from view. The spells meant to entrap those she wished to keep and steer away those she wished to avoid slid around Tanaqui and Duck as he strummed the cwidder, muttering incantations under his breath. Tanaqui supposed that Moril had tried a variety of different styles of song on the pipes until he'd accidentally stumbled on a way through,

It had taken months for Tanaqui to make her way from Kernsburg to Kredindale. The shape of the land itself seemed to have changed, and that made her uneasy. She understood, however, when she caught a glimpse of Cenblith's weaving—in the Old Writing, at that!—and understood that Cenblith had The One in thrall.

Nothing remained of The One but a small brown figurine of hardened terracotta, but Mitt was there. It seemed to have unnerved him, in a most atypical vague way, how The One had evaporated into the figurine as Cenblith had baked it. At least he'd had the sense to bind her into a promise. Her heir, and her heir's heirs, would engage in a ritual designed to set the One free.

"Might take a few flaming centuries, though," Mitt grumbled.

"There's no time for whining," Tanaqui said. She was the sensible one, after Hern, and she knew when they could and couldn't dawdle. "Duck will get you out of here. Grab The One's figurine and _go_."

Mitt made to protest, but Tanaqui was already climbing up into Cenblith's workroom, where she didn't yet realise that Mitt couldn't follow.

She did not see Mitt obey her instructions, after a brief, heated argument with her brother. She stood there, net clenched into a too-small ball in her fingers, and read what Cenblith had woven.

She understood.

* * *

When Cenblith arrived, Tanaqui wasted no time. She flung the net at Cenblith, and it expanded to cover its victim, and then constricted. Cenblith clawed wildly at the fabric as if to break the spell by breaking the rough strands of netting. But, Tanaqui had poured what power remained to her into it, and she held it with her own energy and strong force of will. Cenblith could not break free. The net sank into her skin, binding her powers. It did not make much difference what she wove, now. It would never again have the power to change the world.

Tanaqui died content.


	5. Duck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war against Cenblith and her daughter kills off the Undying. Then, Anoreth defects.

Mitt had given up most all hope of rescue when Osfameron arrived. He'd cut through Cenblith's spells with the cwidder with casual skill. It was just as Mitt remembered.

But, he had to work harder than that to reawaken Mitt to himself. He managed to do this by talking to Mitt, but weaving him into the incantation he was working even whilst hiding himself from Cenblith. The words put him in mind of one of Moril's favourite legends, about how Osfameron once raised The Adon from the dead.

"Alhammitt of Holand, Osfameron calls your wandering soul. Recall your past and recollect your purpose. Face the past to free your soul. Follow and in silence, your freedom awaits. Bring what Cenblith worked, what binds your friend. No bond that holds you can best this song. Hurry! Tanaqui is here helping you to escape. Listen to me, not Cenblith. Look around you and know yourself."

At some point, his magic words cut through the spells Cenblith had placed upon him without him realising it. Mitt grabbed hold of the figurine that was all that was left of the One, and then, after a pause, remembered his son, and The One's daughter. He could bring one of them with him. The other, Cennoreth's heir, was bound to her same fate. Cenblith's heir, whoever it was. He suspected that she would consider the boy to be her heir given old laws of primogeniture. That was his son.

But the girl, the One's daughter, had been here longer, and was the elder of the two.

 _I_ _will choose her heir_ , he thought to himself. The One had laid one binding, and it was on him to lay a second one, that added to it, and settled the matter once and for all. It was not just an excuse to bring his son with him, the one who was younger, and less tainted by Cenblith's view. The girl had had years to have her mind poisoned.

He took Ynen's hand, and The One in the other, and they fled.

* * *

When Duck came to the lair of Cenblith, he trusted in the power of his cwidder to hide him and Tanaqui for as long as he was there to help. He had not wanted to leave her behind. But, he had known that she had made up her mind to die here when he saw her fall. He led Mitt out and a safe distance away, but as he left, he played a chord on the cwidder, and changed his song of freedom and flight into a dark, deep ominous one of vengeance and death, and called forth fire as he left.

Cenblith he left to watch her weaving burn.

* * *

And Mitt bound his own son, Ynen, as Cenblith's heir, and laid upon him a burden, to him and to his heir, and to his heir's heirs, and went into hiding. A fire, kindled from their own hearth, where they were in hiding, far in the North. The eldest son to tend and to keep it going. The fire must never go out. Mitt had taken it from the fire that Osfameron had used to destroy Cenblith's spellcoats. It had all their power—Osfameron and Cenblith and now Mitt.

The One was their last best chance against Cenblith.

* * *

Mitt was in hiding, with the little boy. Duck was quite alone, as he hadn't been in years. It had never troubled him before, but this time he knew that he was the last of his family. Hern and Gull had died long ago. Robin had died fighting Kankredin a few years ago. And now, Tanaqui, too, had died fighting this _Cenblith_. He didn't know why she hadn't left to recover her strength, instead of pouring the last of it into trying to weaken Cenblith.

It was as he was thinking mournfully about Tanaqui's death that a vaguely familiar figure he hadn't seen in centuries crested the hill before him. It took a moment. He thought that she might have been a mirage cast by his grief. Then, he was sure that it was her. He knew her.

Dark like her father, with curly black hair in not-quite-bushy springs, but those wide, blue-green eyes with a familiar sharp keenness that Duck had never thought to see again. She wore a black dress with flared sleeves that rose in the middle and made something of a letter M of her dress. He had not seen her in centuries, and yet it seemed only yesterday that they'd parted ways.

"Hello, Uncle Osfameron," she said, with that wry, snappy voice she'd inherited from her mother. She called him by the name he'd used when they'd parted ways.

"Manaliabrid?" he asked, as if she might also evaporate before his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah, Uncle! You should know. I'm looking for you, of course! Death sent me into exile, and I have grieved a long time. I will grieve forever. But as it was death that sent me away, now it is death that brings me back. Lagan died long ago, but this Cenblith still lives. I intend to see that changed. Let us create an army of the Undying who remain, and see her suffer."

There was still the savage wildness of her grief, but there was pinpoint purpose to it as well, for the moment.

Duck considered. The idea had some merit. They would call Cenblith's attention away from hunting down The One, and Mitt. Cenblith had no more power. The remaining threat to her was her daughter. Duck wished that Mitt had had the sense to bring The One's daughter with him when he'd fled. That was too much power left in Cenblith's hands, and also—

* * *

The Undying had not united behind a common banner in a very long time. But, most of them had been born into times of suffering and death. Cenblith's daughter met them and crushed their souls, and they broke apart. For she was the daughter of The One, and her power over souls was undeniable. She had been born a member of the Great Undying, and Cenblith had ensured that she knew it.

And thus did the Undying of Dalemark come against the Weaver Cenblith, and perish one by one.

* * *

Anoreth had been born in bloodshed and fire, and she understood little else. Cenblith had hidden her away until, although still only a child, she was strong enough, and understood her power enough, to weave disaster into the fates of all who opposed her mother. Her weaving was not as powerful as her mother's, but the blood of The One made up for it.

Most wars do not last for decades. Most wars are not among the Undying. The people of Dalemark prayed and wept, and remembered the gods they'd once disowned.

* * *

She couldn't kill him. She just didn't know why. The boy with the hair as pale and yellow as her own, and that strange instrument that cut through her mother's defences. Nor could she touch the girl with the equally curly black hair. It seemed forbidden, and wrong. She left them go.

Cenblith gathered an army of followers from among people who wanted to learn to use magic. She made the colleges of mages. They came from Haligland, over the sea. Even Cenblith had not expected the power of her weaving to reach across the ocean.

But, it had. And these mages, self-taught and taught by Cenblith, could fight. There was less use for Anoreth. She thought that she was being replaced, and ran away.

She was only eight years old.

She met a man coming down the way, and she knew that he was Undying, but she didn't know _him_. She thought that she could trust him. She listened when he told her tales of what was, and that night, she traveled the Green Roads in her dreams, and saw what was meant to be.

"Thank you, Halian," she told him, later. "I won't fight for my mother anymore. I will join the army of the Undying against her, and she will have to kill me if she means to rule Dalemark."

She walked the place where the Green Roads had been with Halian, and walked amongst the people of Dalemark, and saw what was in their souls. Her heart was moved by their desperation. Halian was not always there, but the people he left her with were kind to her, and she learnt softness and kindness from them.

When she was ten years old, she gathered together some wool, and the small loom that was all she needed for protection, and sought out the battle lines that she'd watched from atop so many hills before. She came to the woman she'd never been able to kill, sensing a kindred spirit, one who knew at least a little of weaving.

"I am Anoreth of the Undying," she said. "I will help you defeat Cenblith."

* * *

In the two years that Anoreth Walked, Duck was killed by one of the mages. That is a bit misleading to say. He had been worn down with the energy he'd poured into what little he knew of weaving. He'd made nets like the ones Tanaqui had used to bind Cenblith, and understood how it had led to her death. But, the mages were not as powerful as Cenblith. He needed to use less power.

Only he had a cwidder, and that cwidder sang full of power that could not be used any other way. Even exhausted as he was, Duck was needed in battle, and as he had long ago, he could not stand back and watch. He fought, even exhausted, and it was inevitable that one of Cenblith's spell-weavers should eventually catch him, weakened as he was, and one of the javelins pierced his stomach, and it was on fire.

Duck died in a blaze of fire and glory, and was soon forgotten.

* * *

But, Anoreth went to her mother one day, and in her hands was a powerful weaving, and on her lips a powerful melody, Manaliabrid's second lament, which flowed into her third. So much death in this quest for conquest. Anoreth would have none of it.

Her mother was old, and growing frailer. But she was still crafty. Anoreth cut her hands off to rob her of her power, and held her immobile with a song. Cenblith's death was soft and quiet, a poison-tipped blade that bit into her leg and made her death quicker than those she'd granted many others.

But, though she died, her legacy lived on in the war between the Undying and the Mages.


	6. Tanamil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lead-up to the events depicted in _The Spellcoats_. And after.

Dalemark was no more. Mages taught other mages. The Undying continued to die.

Manaliabrid herself was killed by a mage. She died with a smile, because it meant that she was free to join her Adon, lost long ago.

But, time passed, and generations with it. Eventually, the man who had once been called Mitt was free to leave behind his descendants.

He emerged into a world radically changed from the one he'd left. Although The One was no longer in her possession, and her own magic writhed beneath the surface of her skin until she died, her daughter, Anoreth, was the daughter of The One, and she was powerful. Nor had Mitt seen all of Cenblith's weavings. Familiar things that had been around back during his childhood were no more. They had been forgotten, as if erased from history.

No one had ever heard of the Green Roads. No one knew what a gun was, or a cwidder, or a school. It had all been swept away in fire, flood, and quake.

Mitt-who-was did not understand. He had been glad to guide Anoreth away from the destruction Cenblith had led her over. He had taught his own son, and watched his son teach his son, the invocation, the ritual to free The One. He had not fought in the war. Osfameron, of all people, had wanted to spare him, that.

The people had forgotten the Undying. They had forgotten their own history.

They remembered only The One, their Grand Father, who seemed to have been conflated somewhat with Mitt as a ruler in oldendays.

They had lots of little leaders, scattered across Dalemark, and a king who was supposed to rule them (a descendant of Cenblith by way of Mitt's line), but he was the last of the Undying, as far as he could tell, save for Anoreth, Cenblith's daughter.

He wandered the ravaged South, and returned to the North. He called himself Halian tan Haleth, and did not understand. He did not understand for a very long time.

* * *

He and Anoreth sent the mages across the sea, back to Haligland. He did not, as things usually went, feel the hand of The One in it until after.

* * *

Wen Anoreth came, saying that she was getting married, and holding what Halian knew to be called a "rugcoat", he told her that she ought to ask The One for his blessing. She didn't listen.

Mitt had taken him away from his daughter, and The One would not listen to Halian. He knew that she had married into his own family because they had in their possession the figurine of The One, and the same of him that Halian had taught Anoreth to make, long ago. In this way, the lineages of the last of the Undying met in these two families. It seemed a bad idea not to ask The One for advice.

"I didn't know that my Father spoke to you!" she huffed. Cenblith had raised her to be selfish and independent, and she didn't see why she should need to ask permission or blessings from anyone.

She found out.

* * *

He understood only after Duck was born, and a weakened Anoreth had made her own husband bind her in wood. He paid attention to the family, to their prayers and needs, and conceded that he'd become some sort of Greater Undying, if only for want of any others you might turn to for aid. He did not know about the coming again of the Undying in the south just then. His focus was narrowed, fixed on the descendants of Anoreth, his own distant descendants. (Although, as Osfameron had once asked of Moril, he didn't think about that too hard.)

Robin came often to speak with him, and there was a look in her eyes, as if she knew that this statuette really was more than it seemed. She told him about her life, and about her siblings. She spoke of life in Shelling, simple pleasures, her attempts to learn to weave. When she snuck down to the fire late at night, she danced, and came alive in the firelight.

He didn't remember the last time he'd had such a natural interaction with someone, which was sad. Perhaps, he'd hidden himself away for too long. But, Cenblith's magic was powerful, and its effects still lingered. The threads that bound them were coming loose, but neither were yet free.

Kind of The One, and sneaky, to hide a means of unbinding Mitt at the same time that he was himself unbound. Mitt should have expected it.

Robin spoke of her younger sister, Tanaqui, one night, saying that she showed promise in weaving, although the girl couldn't have been more than five years old. She spoke of her youngest brother, Duck. She complained about Hern.

Hern had come here only when he had to, as dictated by ritual. He did not believe in the Undying. "You're only a lump of clay," he said, kicking at the niches by the fireplace, but fearing his father's wrath if he damaged one of the figurines. "There's no such thing! People in Shelling are superstitious, and it's alright to say that, but my family doesn't see they're just as bad."

Halian dreaded being in the same room as Hern when no one else was around. Hern had a strong personality, and the sort of bitterness Halian associated with Cenblith. He would have to keep an eye on that one.

Duck, though. Once he was old enough to walk and talk, he was old enough for a great deal many other things that he ought to be too young for. He was precocious.

He came over, humming little tunes, asking things like, "Do you like it? I'm still working on it, but I think it sounds pretty good. It's the sort of song that goes with a prayer, don't you think?"

Or, he'd come over in tears, and turn to his mother, with a hasty awkward, "Sorry. Not to slight you, but I have to talk to The Lady, now. Hern was being nasty again. I think it's because Gull told him his feet were too small, and his nose was too big. He hates being made fun of."

It was clear that Duck thought of him as a person, as perhaps no one else in the family did. Even Robin had a sort of distance to her, and he knew that she danced by the fireplace because she was sure of being alone. She believed in The Undying, but didn't think that they were _watching_ her, only protecting her and her family.

Tanaqui believed, too. But, despite what she'd been taught, she came over and wove stories for him, until her voice was hoarse, about nameless heroes and kings and princesses, mages and dragons, starlight and raindrops. She knew that he could hear her, but she came only when desperate, and she did not seem quite clear on whether he was in the same place as the statue, or somewhere else. It made him remember what he'd once told Noreth: that the Undying were human-sized, and how she'd said that some of the things they did made them seem smaller. He supposed that this was one such.

Duck was always respectful and eager to please, and when Halian dared to speak to him, he seemed to hear. They could almost have a conversation.

"What do you think about this phrase, here?" Duck asked, humming a few bars in an atrociously high and reedy voice.

At first, Halian only listened for something to do, and because it was polite. But, Duck would always wait, listening hard, and when Halian dared to say something, using what he'd learnt about pipes and music from Moril and Osfameron, Duck would pause, cocking his head, and nodding after they'd both been silent for a few seconds. It was just off synch enough that Halian couldn't tell if Duck could hear what he said, or whether he just was listening to his own inner voice.

But, he made a point to always respond. And, it hit him, that Duck's flippant respect, and way of almost-seeming to know that Halian was there reminded him of Osfameron himself. He had neither cwidder nor pipes, no instrument but his voice, but there was power in his music.

As there was power in Tanaqui's weaving, when she was old enough to be allowed to weave in earnest.

As there was power in Robin's dances that had been absent from Cenblith's.

And, Halian understood, when Duck asked, "Why do we call you the Young One, then? Are you a younger version of The One?"

For the One had three names. He was called Adon and Oreth and Amil. And, Mitt had taken the name of Amil. And the name of Kialan, that he used now. Anoreth had the third.

He was Tan Adon, and Tan Amil, and Tan Oreth, the Bound.

He was Tanamil. Duck was Osfameron.

* * *

"And, I ruined it!" Tanaqui huffed, glaring down at the rugcoat-dress folded over her knee. "Everything on this line is an inch too far to the left, and I tried to fix it by moving the other lines over, too, but look at this! It's a muddle. You can't read any of it. Just sort of make out the first and third lines. I don't know what _happened_!"

She was venting, but he still wished that she could hear his response. He might have been tempted, in that moment, to tell her how she'd become one of the Greater Undying one day (he was almost sure that she must be Cennoreth), but he might at least have made some sort of ordinary reassurance to the tune that everyone made mistakes, and even if you didn't know what went wrong, you just tried again. By now, however, he knew that Tanaqui was nothing if not stubborn. Her entire flaming family was! Well, perhaps not _Robin_ as much….

"See, I was trying to write the story of how Mother and Father met. Or some story that reminded me of it, rather, and I would have let on in a little note what I was doing. but it's just a folk tale, and I can't let it be a gift for Mother now, I _can't_! I shall have to make something else."

She bent over the hem of the dress, and ran her finger across the lines as she continued, "See, here, what I meant to put was: _A man came over the hill/He came to see the one he loved/The lady in the mill/Came to meet him, with a smile/"How happy I would be if you only stopped and stayed/But as it is I'll wait for you until that day._ Isn't it ridiculous and sappy? I think Mother would like that, don't you?"

He did not, but he couldn't tell her that. She never heard him.

Tanamil sat by the fire, and listened until Tanaqui talked herself hoarse, and left promising to be a great weaver someday. "Then, no one will believe I wove this…this _rubbish_ , Young One! Just see!"

She was always saying things like that. Promising to do better to the Undying, as a way to show she really meant it.

* * *

It was not until he met them in person that he saw that Tanaqui was not Undying after all. She was mortal, just like Hern and Gull, only strong as Hern was, instead of faded and weakened like Gull. To be fair, Gull had been under enchantments for quite some time. Tanamil had gone over to the war, periodically, to check in on Closti and Gull. He had seen what Kankredin's mages had done. But his power was still bound by Cenblith. There was little that he could do until the family brought Gull to him.

Hern did not trust him. He didn't realise that Tanamil was Undying at all, and still didn't believe in any of them. Gull did not know anything by that point.

Tanaqui seemed to think that he was suspicious, but not enough that she refused to trust him, as Hern refused to trust him. Over the next few days, she seemed to warm up to him, anyway, enough that he could finally have a conversation with her about weaving. She seemed to think he was an expert, weaving together rushes to show the symbols she was using.

"Do you think this works? How about this one?"

He thought that a weaver of her renown probably knew better than he did what signs to use for weaving. But, he had tor remind himself, she was not there yet. And there was something else, something important. If she were going to unweave the bonds Cenblith had set around the One (and per the One's extracted promise, himself as well), she would need to use the right symbol for The River—the One that symbolised Anoreth unbound, unbroken.

He made sure that she understood what he taught her.

Duck stared at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion, with that familiar look that said he knew something was _off_ but not _what_ , and paid rapt attention. There was a persistent sense of being watched. But, he thought that Duck figured it out, even before they left Tanamil's shelter at the Watersmeet. He certainly had by the time they met again.

Robin did not recognise him, but he thought that he knew her quite well by now. He had never seen her in person, before, however. Over the next few months, he watched her, mostly. There was sort of a familiar nervousness about her, the hand-wringing and desperation atop a personality that was always looking after others. It reminded him of Noreth. It reminded him of Maewen.

He felt drawn to her, in a different way from how he felt drawn to Cenblith. He wanted to keep her safe at the Watersmeet, even though he could see that she was Undying. He told her that she was, and she burst into tears. Robin knew things. She understood that no matter what popular conceptions were about death and immortality, being Undying was both a blessing and a curse. He promised her that they could share it together. Really, though, he would have said anything to make her stop crying.

He understood, then. It wasn't that she was Libby Beer. There was something about _her_. Like when he had chosen the name Amil, and known that it was a real choice, no matter that he knew what he had chosen, so too did he now know that he was _choosing_ Robin, and even thought that she might not ever agree.

He had not let himself fall in love for a very long time. He picked a poor time to break that habit.

She would not leave her siblings alone. She insisted on going with them to the sea. He could not stop her. That would be betraying her trust, keeping her prisoner. All he could do was guard her on the way to the sea, and hope she had the sense not to meet with Kankredin, at least.

The closer she got to the sea, the worse Robin looked. Kankredin's proximity seemed to be taking a physical toll on her body. It made Tanamil worry about her. Maewen had been strong and hale when he'd last seen her. He only found out later that she'd been killed in the earthquake that had destroyed Kernsburg. He thought that he should not have left Robin alone, to face a great evil like Kankredin on her own. He knew that he had it in him to fight Kankredin—or he would have had he not been bound.

But, bound he was, and there was nothing that he could do to stop her. She descended from Cenblith, and the bonds that had prevented him from harming Cenblith kept him from stopping Robin.

When Tanaqui called him, he dropped everything to come see to Robin.

* * *

He knew that it was Tanamil taught Osfameron Peace Piping. There was, however, a sort of anomaly at work—if he had taught Duck, and Osfameron had taught Mitt, then where did the concept come from?

Duck had passed through death since last they met, and was a match for any mage. It had helped him to tap into his natural gifts as a member of the Undying, as well. There was almost a familiar vastness around him.

"Wider than the world, or small as in a nut," he said to himself, as he watched the battle play out around him. Dalemark was always at war, and it didn't even exist yet.

Somehow, when his focus had been elsewhere, Hern had become a great leader. "Heathens" and "natives" rallied to his standard. Hern's scepticism turned into a strength.

"Just give them anything," he said.

He and Duck wove nets to stop Kankredin's mages. Tanamil thought of the net that had drained Cennoreth to her death, long ago, and refused to let her have any part of it. Duck seemed to understand.

The nets lit everything in false-fire, and the River burnt. He understood, and threw himself into the waters, and he, Anoreth, and The One combined their strengths for the first, and last time.

* * *

The world broke open. The One tore everything apart. The land was remade, and so were its people.

There were things that he was not supposed to forget, but they were so far away—

* * *

"What's your name?" Mitt asked. He looked very young, and earnest, and did not yet know that there were even greater things in store for him in the future. He was just a guttersnipe from the South, who had completely misinterpreted his own past, and recently had that knowledge slapped across his face. For the moment. "I mean, it can't really be 'Old Ammet'."

"Once it was the same as yours," Tanamil said. "But people have forgotten."

He remembered that much.


End file.
